The Last and Final Word: Amon26
Amon26 enjoys dabbling in multimedia. After receiving the encouragement of fan mail, fan art and some positive coverage for his first release, All of Our Friends Are Dead, it seems that videogame development has stuck.
Name?
Amon 26, born Benjamin Braden.
Age?
28.
Location?
Michigan. The rust-belt.
Development tool(s) of choice?
Flash, Gamemaker, Photoshop 7, FL Studio, Goldwave, Alchemy, Sketchup, Sculptris and Zbrush.
What do you do?
Multimedia Entertainer Extraordinaire!! (Composing music, making games, toys, jewelry. Anything that could potentially incite fun).
What do you want IT to do for you?
Do enough of it to pay the rent, fill the fridge, and have a night on the town every now and again.
How did you get into game development?
Curiosity! I love games and wanted to see what kind I could make. It started when found a open, comprehensive platformer code base and tried to project an idea onto the technology that excited me. It was as sloppy and self indulgent as they come (posting it online was almost an after-thought really). So when my mailbox exploded with fan mail, drawings, and reviews I was very flattered. Even though I really didn’t know what I was doing, people seemed to like it. So I just kept going.
What are your goals and aspirations as a game developer?
Make stuff that’s fun! I don’t really do competitions. I never got in this to “win”. I enjoy a good story, a good challenge, or a good joke. And if I can accomplish at least one of those three with anything I make, then I’m proud of my work. It would be nice to make this a career for a while, of course. Money is a good thing to have (it helps you buy decorative lawn ornaments and get to cool places).
How far do you think you have come as a game developer? Can you pretty much make any concept you come up with?
I can now write the code for my games from the ground-up. It’s not the most elegant code but if it runs smooth and doesn’t crash I’m good! Since my style is primarily NES - SNES era, most of my ideas are within reach. However, 3D still really intimidates me and I have some really fun 3D game concepts. For now though, it’s so far beyond me. Down the road I’d like to lead a small team and attempt to make an offbeat yet commercial product for steam, a console system or a mobile device.
What are some of the important lessons you have learnt so far about finishing up and releasing projects?
1. Never look at all you have to do, just what you have to do next. If an idea isn’t working, drop it or trim it down to something you know how to do. (i.e: You decide you want to cross a river by building a bridge, but you don’t have enough wood yet. So just build a boat instead). You can always come back and try that “big” idea after you get more experience.
2. There will be people who hate your work, and they will want you to feel bad for sharing it. This isn’t in any way constructive criticism and you have better things to do with your time than waste it listening to them bemoan a free download. If Uwe Bohl can make a living and be happy with his life and career in spite of being the bullseye for film critics around the world, what’s stopping you?
3. Make bad games on purpose sometimes!!! It’s fun!!! One of my favorite experiences was on a laptop in a bar, I decided to make a game in 1 hour and let my only input be the feedback of inebriated patrons. I made the art in MS-Paint and the sounds with the built in mic. I titled it “Lets Win Everything” and it’s a purposeless technicolor mess but it never fails to get a laugh out of anyone I show it to. It also reminds me of good times.
How do you approach the development process and what do you find the most satisfying parts of that process?
I get a picture in my head of something that would be fun to play, then make a mock-up of it in Photoshop, then break it apart into assets, tiles, backgrounds, effects, and start working a rough prototype of the code to make the basic parts move how I want. Once it starts to behave in the manner I imagined, I start making the code more bulletproof and start adding stuff, just throwing things at the system until it breaks. Then I trim it back until it stops being broken, and repeat that process over and over until the game’s complete!
And the most tedious parts?
Bug hunting. I’m not an amazing coder, so it happens a lot. Sometimes I just have no clue how to phrase something in the code I want to happen and I’m stuck pouring through wiki forums, and sending S.O.S’es out to other developers who know more about programming than I. If it weren’t for the help of generous people willing to show me better programming methods, I’d be a dead fish right now.
Any super-regular helpers you want to give props to?
Oh yeah! (Commence name-drop in 3-2-) Jazzuo, The Vlambeerguys, The D-Pad Team, Cactus, Edmund Mcmillen, Chevy Ray Johnston, Anna Anthropy, Reyann Thorne, Daphny David, Loren (Sparky) Schmidt, Maher Sagrillo, Jessica Glave, Sam Mahr and Brandon Bradshaw. I need to stop because we’ll be here all day. I’m just damn lucky these people have my back.
What mediums have you turned to for inspiration for your games thus far?
I’m kind of an omnivore when it comes to entertainment. Obviously, some of my work has come from nightmares, but I’ve tempered those experiences with real life stuff like a scene from a film, a line from a book, a burned out house, a creepy real life experience or a painting.
At the moment I’m making a very colorful, bombastic game that’s really meant to be a giant love-letter to 80s / 90s kitsch. So I’ve been soaking in lots of punk-rock, B-52’s, Bubblegum Pop, Sonic The Hedgehog, Top Gun, and the Saturday Morning Cartoons I grew up on. I’m hoping to absorb all of that manic energy and have the end result feel like something zesty that stands on its own two feet while being able to reflect all those influences in a tasteful way.
Apparently game development is an especially time consuming hobby and I know you like to work with other forms of media such as writing, drawing and composing. How much of your time does it eat up and does it leave enough room for the other stuff?
It’s time well spent, but you’re right, it is a lot of time isn’t it? I still really enjoy getting out with friends, traveling, or just being off the computer though. I think I make it work by letting the fact that this is what I do be part of my being (it’s part of who I am). Sometimes if it’s appropriate I’ll bring along my laptop or a pen / paper when I’m out and do little bits of game developing while with friends. They can spot things I might overlook or just come up with a really good idea I would never have thought of. Anyways, you’d be surprised just how much time you really have if you look!
Do you crave your games to be seen by a wider audience?
I’d really like that, yes! But at the same time I’m happy that I’m like a well-kept secret. I can still personally respond to every e-mail I get from someone that’s enjoyed my work. I’ve made a lot of friends that way and often they share work that they’re doing, and I love seeing that.
When you make a game, do you aim to please your audience or yourself? Do you make games that you, yourself, want to play?
It’s a tightrope walk. Whenever I set out to make something I have an audience in mind, and of course, want to see it land on target. But at the same time, if I don’t like playing the game I’m creating then I feel I’m wasting time. I guess I consider myself part of the audience as I go.
And do you actually play them after you’re done or does the enthusiasm dissipate?
Oh yes, I went back to play All Of Our Friends Are Dead a while ago. It kicked my ass really bad! I had forgotten just how tough that game was. And in the process of playing it I got a few new ideas for something I’m making at the moment. So yeah, I enjoy going back and playing stuff I made.
You live in your mom’s apartment, right? Do you find this environment to be inspirational or de-motivational towards game development?
It’s real rough, but she needs a lot of help. I have a 87 year old grandma and a teenage brother with significant autism. So I live with them all to help out (sort of a mr. mom kinda thing). Making food, running errands and keeping plans organized. I share a lot of my earnings with them to help out.
It’s tough though. I can’t do this forever and I’m pushing 30. I don’t want to be “That Guy” and they need to stand on their own two feet. They’ve all been so incredibly supportive though, and are really sweet people. It’s hard for me to just say “well, good luck, thanks for the food!”
Do you enjoy working in isolation?
Sometimes I really appreciate a long isolated stretch where I can just grind out tons of content without interruption. But if I go on working like that for too long, I become a mole. I can get reclusive sometimes but I don’t like the idea of being a shut-in. So when I find myself getting a little too stagnant I try to find something to break me back out into the world.
I enjoy being around people and travelling. I also like going to divey old bars in the bad parts of town, singing karaoke, learning bar tricks and swapping stories with crazy old people. It all feeds back into the process of creation I think, and if I didn’t let myself have an extroverted life, I would never have anything fresh to come back into this dark little room with to print to the screen.
So are you particularly self-disciplined when spending your time in game development mode or are you easily distracted?
Depends: in the long, boring center of a design arc it can be really easy for me to want to drop it and just do something more instantly gratifying. But nothing gets accomplished if I just keep switching gears, so I guess I have a pretty decent amount of self discipline.
Do you find it easy to stick to one project at a time or do the ideas come thick and fast?
Well I’m always getting new ideas for games when working on other ones. Normally I make a rule to not work on more than one game at a time but recently certain situations have led me to break that rule. It can be tempting, especially in the long middle stretch of a project where you just want it to be done. But I know if I keep dropping projects and starting new ones I’ll never finish any of them. The will to see something through keeps me grounded.
